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TH · Thailand · –

Nam Yuen fire, 11 February 2019 น้ำยืน · Nam Yuen

Out · last detection 27 Feb 2019, 19:01 UTC

The fire started on 11 February 2019 in Nam Yuen, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,767 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 137 in Thailand in 2019, of 385.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
1,767ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
11 Feb 2019 – 26 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Feb
2019
Heat detections
101
in a single hotspot: 21 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Average daily power
36MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Feb26 Feb
27 Feb 2019

How it evolved, day by day

11 Feb 2019 · 15 MW · 4 12 Feb 2019 · 49 MW · 10 13 Feb 2019 · 29 MW · 11 14 Feb 2019 · 54 MW · 12 15 Feb 2019 · 26 MW · 11 16 Feb 2019 · 82 MW · 14 17 Feb 2019 · 32 MW · 11 18 Feb 2019 · 17 MW · 13 19 Feb 2019 · 5 MW · 6 27 Feb 2019 · 56 MW · 9
11 Feb 13 Feb 16 Feb 19 Feb

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

35°high
36km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 44 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,543 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.1% of the area of London (18 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Nam Yuen น้ำยืน where it started
    1,777 ha reached on 11 Feb
    1.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
11 Feb 33.6 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Feb 34.0 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Feb 33.7 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Feb 33.5 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Feb 33.9 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Feb 33.7 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Feb 32.3 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Feb 32.1 °C 48 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
19 Feb 33.7 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Feb 33.3 °C 49 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
21 Feb 34.3 °C 47 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
22 Feb 34.7 °C 45 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
23 Feb 32.8 °C 56 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
24 Feb 34.5 °C 51 % 26 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 20
25 Feb 33.9 °C 44 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Feb 34.4 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Feb after 34.4 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Feb after 34.1 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Mar after 34.0 °C 46 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Mar after 34.0 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
3 Mar after 33.8 °C 49 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Mar after 32.9 °C 43 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Mar after 33.4 °C 49 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Mar after 34.3 °C 43 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Mar after 35.7 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Mar after 34.3 °C 42 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 29.5, a minimum humidity of 34% and 44 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 5.

FWI at the start 29.5
Minimum humidity 34 %
Days without rain 44
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Nam Yuen fire, April 2016
2,573 ha 11 days FWI 27.7 Min. humidity 42 % 8 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.0 mm on 28 Apr.

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 5. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
36km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 26 Feb, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 4 Feb 2019
After · 5 Mar 2019

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 101Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Thailand

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Nam Yuen fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 February 2019 to 26 February 2019 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 February 2019 to 19 February 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,767 hectares (17.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Nam Yuen (1,777 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Thailand (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 199 · 191 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 19 February 2019 → 26 February 2019.
  2. Start date: 12 February 2019 → 11 February 2019.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 199 · 191.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 12 February 2019 to 19 February 2019. 101 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.